Ever since watching Record of Lodoss War in the 1990s, I've fall in love with the elven race. Llanowar elves became the staples in almost all my decks since I start playing MTG in early 1995. Fast forward to 2011 when I came back to MTG after quitting for 10+ years, I discovered EDH/Commander. Ever since then I've been wanting to make an Elf tribal EDH that is a keeper and not dismantling it after playing for a few months.

I started with Traditional mono G elves, Ezuri. Too aggroish for my taste. After that I dived into Simic elves, spent a couple of years trying to 'fix' what simic elves can do and cannot do. Momir Vig is an excellent commander, but it depends on a lot of "non-elves" and good stuff cards to make it really lethal. Black give access to Glissa, Nath and Jarad, which is very graveyard based and clashes with my other graveyard themed EDH decks. Moreover elves as a tribal doesn't really benefit much from graveyard strategies. Red is the original color to play along with elves, hence coining the MTG term "Elfball", but Gruul doesn't really provide much choice in Elven commanders.

White in 2014 gets a really good Elf commander, Selvala Explorer Returned. She gives off the feeling of what an elf is known for in the history of Magic, producing mana. She also provides some utility in the form of card draw. But like the other GW elf commanders, e.g. Rhys, Selvala only has a couple of ways to win the game, 80% of the time she just wins by turning creatures sideways to attack.

In 2015, it suddenly dawned upon me that since I still can't find best dual/tri colors for my Elf deck, why not make a 5 color Elf deck that encompass all the strategies of past decks accumulated over the past 4-5 years? It will be a balanced deck, with various strategies enabling it to go aggro, combo or control based on the board situation. Hence the 2 color Elf deck I've been struggling to 'perfect' for the past 4 years became Reaper King - Elf Tribal.

Deck's direction and Why you should consider this deck

This deck seeks to preserve the tribal feel of Elves and to provide different approaches to win the game based on the cards dealt. It includes ways and means to fight using the aggro route and provide alternative wins via board control. Infinite combos are included if it is really needed.

There are no 5 color commanders that are built solely for elves. At first glance, Karona, False God seems the be the 'go to' choice for a tribal, but she offer very little to the elves as most elves are able to pump the +3/+3 on their own (eg. Ezuri). Other commanders like Child of Alara are detrimental for elves as elves require a substantial board presence to actually work. Progenitus is just a huge beater that does nothing.

Reaper King becomes the obvious choice for 2 reasons. Firstly RK can be casted solely from 1 single color of mana. For elves case it will be 8G. This allows elves to continue running on its own without worrying about not having mana of each color. The second reason is RK provides something an Elf centric deck is lacking, the lack of having a wincon outside of turning sideways for the elf tribe. RK forms the combo wincon component for elves, akin to an Elf-ball deck. The plus point being RK is a commander and is readily accessbile from the command zone.

Hence, the only problem left to solve is to find out a way to trigger RK's ability without diluting the elf tribe. This will be discussed at length in the section below.

Strategy and Combos

This is a huge section to cover, To facilitate easy understanding of how the deck works and how everything fits together, this section will be further split into the following:

The Essentials - In this section we will discuss the cornerstones of the deck, what cards to look out for when playing and the basic strategies and combos to use each of the cards.

Synergies - Here we will talk about the various synergies that is employed in the deck and how it is best to make use of the cards available to tackle situations.

The Essentials

I feel that it is more important to understand why a card is in the deck rather than showcasing what combos the deck has first. In this way it is easier to understand how the deck works in general.

Cornerstone 1: Changelings - Bridging the Scarecrow < - > Elf tribes

There are total of 26 changeling cards in the entire world of MTG. However, there are only 4 changelings we are adding from that pool of 26 into the deck, maybe 5 if Shapesharer is really needed. At the time of writing, only changelings with Champion ability and Mirror Entity are mainstays in the deck.

There are only 3 changelings with the champion ability and they come from Naya colors, Changeling Hero , Changeling Titan and Changeling berserker. What makes these Elf-scarecrow-ally whatever special is their ability to exile another one of our creatures on ETB, and to return them back to the battlefield when the changeling leaves the battlefield. There are many applications to this, the most obvious application is to get all 3 in the field and start the "faceless butcher" loop to get infinite Reaper King triggers. Other applications include exiling another ETB creature to 'reuse' the ETB creature's ability again when the changeling leaves play for some reason.

Eg. Changeling Hero champions a Mystic Snake. When the player wants to counter a spell, just sacrifice the Changeling Hero

Cornerstone 2: Skyshroud Poacher - Best tutor in deck

Skyshroud Poacher is easily the best tutor card in deck. Finding ways to get Skyshroud Poacher on the board and protecting it is crucial to the deck's success as this guy here can tutor for all sorts of utility elves to either disrupt opponents, to ramp or to protect our creatures. Usually if this guy is left unanswered on the board for 2-3 turns, the tide will swing to our favor.

As compared to Edric, Spymaster of Trest which requires bodies to swing into the enemy, Selvala requires lesser setup and gives pretty good returns in terms of card draw, life gain and mana. With cards that untap creatures in the deck, selvala often yields more than 1 card draw per turn. The perceived threat value of Selvala is also low compared to Edric.

Infinite Combo no.1: 3 Champion Loop

This is the most common ETB loops we have in the deck. When the loop is in place, it can be combined with Reaper King to destroy all opponents' targetable permanents, or with Turntimber Ranger for an obscene amount of wolves. The loop is simple, just like how 3x faceless butcher loop with each other.

How to use the combo:

With a changeling with champion on the battlefield, have the 2nd changeling with champion ETB

2nd changeling champion triggers, exiling the 1st changeling

1st changeling leave the battlefield triggers, returning whatever creature it championed into play

Note: You can substitute 1 of the champions with a clone to achieve the same effect too.

Infinite Combo no.2: Dual Nature Champion Loop

This loop requires just a champion, another creature of your choice and Dual Nature. It allows infinite reuse of ETB abilities depending on which creature is championed. Coiling oracle, Trostani Summoner, Wood Elves, Eternal Witness and Brutalizer Exarch are excellant choices. Due to the nature of having changelings ETB, this combo works really well with Reaper King too.

How to use the combo:

With Dual Nature and the creature of your choice on the battlefield, have the Changeling champion ETB

Changeling champion triggers, exiling the creature of your choice

Dual Nature triggers, putting a token that is a copy of the Changeling champion into play

Token champion triggers, exiling the original Changeling champion

Changeling champion leave the battlefield triggers, returning the creature of your choice back to the battlefield

Dual Nature triggers, exiling the changeling token, returning back the original changeling champion

Dual Nature triggers for creature of your choice, get 2x ETB effect

Changeling champion triggers, exiling the creature of your choice

Repeat from 3

Note: It is important to resolve the triggers step by step as not to confuse your opponents when you pull this off.

Infinite Combo no.3: The tribal Elf 'fireball'

Pure Elf only fireball (Fling the Elf!). The basic setup is to get at least 3 elves (a multi-mana dork, Jarad and another elf) and umbral mantle onto the battlefield. Equip umbral mantle unto the elf and start buffing him/her up and finally fling using Jarad ftw. This combo can also generate infinite mana (G or other colors depending on elf) when there are more elves in play.

Note: This combo is very hard to respond to as mana abilities don't use the stack and umbral's mantle untap is a cost and not a resolution. So in respond to removal of any of the combo pieces less split-second effects, you can continue to add abilities on the stack on top of the removal and proceed onwards with the combo.

It's very strange to see an elf deck without any 1-drop mana dorks (Joraga Treespeaker is a 1.5-drop). I guess you're probably worried that tapping for G isn't going to be as good in a 5c deck, but you're base green so it still seems fine. There's even Deathrite Shaman for all your color-fixing needs.

Finally, I think you can do better than Mind's Eye in a deck with both blue and black in it. Consecrated Sphinx, for example, puts it to shame.

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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.

Thanks for the recommendations. Tested out Artificial Evolution and find that its usage is rather narrow, so far only 3 such cards in the list uses it, Turntimber, Harabaz and Reaper King. The most commonly used combo in the deck is generating infinite mana with elves, and with cards like Minion Reflector and clones, Reaper King can be cast over and over again (using only G mana). With a copy of RK on the battlefield, the original RK can go back to the command zone multiple times while destroying a permanent every time it is cast. Besides, the deck doesn't have enough sources that can generate Elf tokens... no space for Rhys sigh.

Distant Melody and Shared Animosity are excluded due to meta reasons (Heck I even bought foil copies of them wanting to put them in zzz). While piloting the deck, in very rare occasions I will get more then 5 elves on the battlefield at any single time. The highest number of cards I ever drew from distant melody is like 4 cards max while it was still in the deck, would prefer Shamanic Revelation to it. The elves in the deck tend to hate Shared Animosity, as I often don't send mana dorks into the flay if they are not equipped with umbral mantle.

It's very strange to see an elf deck without any 1-drop mana dorks (Joraga Treespeaker is a 1.5-drop). I guess you're probably worried that tapping for G isn't going to be as good in a 5c deck, but you're base green so it still seems fine. There's even Deathrite Shaman for all your color-fixing needs.

Finally, I think you can do better than Mind's Eye in a deck with both blue and black in it. Consecrated Sphinx, for example, puts it to shame.

Yeah, I too find it weird that an elf deck is missing its signature Llanowar Elf and friends. The reason to cut the dorks is not due to worrying about having a dork that taps for G, it is more of the lack of slots. How I wish EDH can be a 120-150 card format, too many elves I want in yet I have no space for it. Any suggestions on what to cut for the 1cc dorks?

Took out Mind's Eye for Jarad, seems like I forgot to remove it from the list. Yeah Mind's Eye is kind of an after-thought on what kind of mana sink I can include in the deck. Sometimes in games I have left over mana unused after my turn, it might be good to have a mana sink in which I can use the mana. Consecrated Sphinx is really good replacement for the eye, totally forgot about it.

Shaman of the Pack, wow I need to try it. Looks really good for elf tribal, thanks for the suggestion. Yep there is currently a Wirewood Symbiote engine, used together with Mirror Entity. When the two of them combine their abilities with a multi-mana dork and minion reflector you get really cute shenanigans. Will post up the combo and the variations once I finish the write up.

[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.

Am now debating whether I should drop Harabaz Druid for Bloom Tender. Bloom Tender is really good when I have multi-colored permanents on the board, but most of the time she just taps for G. Harabaz Druid also taps for 1cc most of the time (but for any color like Birds of Paradise), and when Mirror Entity is in play he really shines. The ability to produce X mana of a single color also puts him in a really good position for cards with triple mana costs.

Wren's Run Packmaster has been in and out of my deck everytime, same with Nullmage Shepherd. There are just too many cards I want to try but have no space for them. Maybe I should try replacing Nature's lore for a dork too.

Not really keen with Tajuru Warcaller, she is a 2/1 for 5 mana which is pretty high in mana costs. The only good thing about her is her ability is good in multiples, with 2 warcallers every ally that ETBs will give each creature +4/+4.

Riptide Replicator is really slow and cumbersome to use. The player needs to pay 10 mana just to get the initial 2/2 token.

Oath of the Gatewatch is released. More toys for this deck yay. Will post writeup updates for this thread soon, stay tuned. :3

I I've this idea but I would love to use Nath and some elves not mentioned hear thoughts on more green black elves

What elves would you like to know about? I'm currently planning to redo this deck so we might get to see more Golgari elves being in the deck, namely Shaman of the Pack, although I don't know how well it will work out since its effect is quite small and requires a bit of setup.